IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/soudev/v1y2006i2p231-248.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining School Enrolment Trends in Kerala, India

Author

Listed:
  • Janakumaran Nair Retnakumar
  • Perianayagam Arokiasamy

    (International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai.)

Abstract

An inevitable consequence of demographic transition in the Indian state of Kerala is the rapidly declining school enrolment in government-funded lower primary schools. So far studies dealing with demographic transition and falling school enrolment concluded that fertility decline is the sole reason for this. A major limitation of these studies is that they focused only on students enrolled in schools affiliated to the Directorate of Public Instruction without accounting for the enrolments of parallel fee-charging private unaided English-medium schools in the state. Based on the enrolment statistics of the Directorate of Public Instruction, studies argued that fertility decline is the main reason for school enrolment decline, leading to the emergence of uneconomic schools. Our analysis shows that aside from fertility decline, the poor quality of teaching in government-funded schools and the resultant exodus to private unaided English-medium schools is significant in accounting for decline in enrolments. The retention of students in government-funded schools can be sustained only by improving the quality of school education.

Suggested Citation

  • Janakumaran Nair Retnakumar & Perianayagam Arokiasamy, 2006. "Explaining School Enrolment Trends in Kerala, India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 1(2), pages 231-248, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:1:y:2006:i:2:p:231-248
    DOI: 10.1177/097317410600100204
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/097317410600100204
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/097317410600100204?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jimenez, E. & Lockheed, M.E., 1995. "Public and Private Secondary Education in Developing Countries. A Comparative Study," World Bank - Discussion Papers 309, World Bank.
    2. Jimenez, Emmanuel & Lockheed, Marlaine E & Paqueo, Vicente, 1991. "The Relative Efficiency of Private and Public Schools in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 6(2), pages 205-218, July.
    3. Kingdon, Geeta, 1996. "The Quality and Efficiency of Private and Public Education: A Case-Study of Urban India," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 58(1), pages 57-82, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pal, Sarmistha & Saha, Bibhas, 2014. "In 'Trusts' We Trust: Socially Motivated Private Schools in Nepal," IZA Discussion Papers 8270, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Bedi, Arjun S. & Garg, Ashish, 2000. "The effectiveness of private versus public schools: the case of Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 463-494, April.
    3. Chen, Yuanyuan & Feng, Shuaizhang & Han, Yujie, 2020. "The effect of primary school type on the high school opportunities of migrant children in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 325-338.
    4. Harold Alderman & Peter F. Orazem & Elizabeth M. Paterno, 2001. "School Quality, School Cost, and the Public/Private School Choices of Low-Income Households in Pakistan," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(2), pages 304-326.
    5. M J Mancebón & M A Muñiz, 2008. "Private versus public high schools in Spain: disentangling managerial and programme efficiencies," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(7), pages 892-901, July.
    6. Patrick McEwan, 2001. "The Effectiveness of Public, Catholic, and Non-Religious Private Schools in Chile's Voucher System," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 103-128.
    7. Lant Pritchett & Martina Viarengo, 2015. "The State, Socialisation, and Private Schooling: When Will Governments Support Alternative Producers?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(7), pages 784-807, July.
    8. Glewwe, Paul & Kremer, Michael, 2006. "Schools, Teachers, and Education Outcomes in Developing Countries," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 16, pages 945-1017, Elsevier.
    9. Mohamad Fahmi, 2009. "School Choice and Earnings: A Case of Indonesia," Working Papers in Economics and Development Studies (WoPEDS) 200914, Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University, revised Sep 2009.
    10. Merzyn, Wolfram & Ursprung, Heinrich W., 2005. "Voter support for privatizing education: evidence on self-interest and ideology," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 33-58, March.
    11. Oliveira, Pedro Rodrigues de & Belluzzo, Walter & Pazello, Elaine Toldo, 2013. "The public–private test score gap in Brazil," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 120-133.
    12. Singh, Abhijeet, 2015. "Private school effects in urban and rural India: Panel estimates at primary and secondary school ages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 16-32.
    13. Mancebón-Torrubia, María Jesús & Ximénez-de-Embún, Domingo Pérez, 2009. "Spanish publicly-subsidised private schools and equality of school choice," MPRA Paper 21164, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. James Tooley, 2004. "‘A Luta Continua’ (The Struggle Continues): Rejoinder To Watkins," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 12-16, December.
    15. Lant Pritchett & Martina Viarengo, 2013. "The State, Socialization, and Private Schooling: When Will Governments Support Alternative Producers?," CID Working Papers 272, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    16. Harriet Nannyonjo, 2007. "Education Inputs In Uganda : An Analysis of Factors Influencing Learning Achievement in Grade Six," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6758, December.
    17. Deolalikar, Anil & Hasan, Rana & Khan, Haider & Quibria, M.G., 1997. "Competiveness and Human Resource Development," MPRA Paper 2819, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 1997.
    18. Pablo González, 2002. "Lecciones de la investigación económica sobre el rol del sector privado en educación," Documentos de Trabajo 117, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    19. Tahir Andrabi & Jishnu Das & Asim Ijaz Khwaja & Tristan Zajonc, 2011. "Do Value-Added Estimates Add Value? Accounting for Learning Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 29-54, July.
    20. Emanuela di Gropello, 2006. "Meeting the Challenges of Secondary Education in Latin America and East Asia : Improving Efficiency and Resource Mobilization," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7173, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:soudev:v:1:y:2006:i:2:p:231-248. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.